How to Be Human
by river-tam's-song
Summary: Captain Doctor Samantha Carter is always all right. But the woman sitting in the corner isn't Samantha Carter any more. Set after Tin Man. Sam/Jack
1. Chapter 1

**Hey, everyone! This is my first foray into the land of SG-1 fanfiction, so please tell me what I can improve on. This will probably end up being about three parts, in case you were wondering. I hope you like it! **

The Stargate closed and left them standing there, faces without names, people without identities. She had chattered with…herself…about how they were practically identical, but it was the practically part that bothered her. She wasn't even sure if she was technically alive. All that she knew was that she was Captain Doctor Samantha Carter, but she was _not _Captain Doctor Samantha Carter. She had half a mind to join the Colonel in strangling Harlan, because he had taken away everything from her: her job, her hopes, her dreams, her identity, her _life. _She felt useless, like a little girl in a costume of someone named "Sam" who she wasn't any more. She couldn't look anyone in the eye. These weren't even her friends. They were copies, cheap imitations of the real thing. She loved them fiercely nonetheless, because they were quite possibly the only people in the universe who understood her plight. She didn't know how to handle not being human, and she couldn't even do anything to take her mind off it.

She functioned. She behaved within the expected parameters for the unit labeled Samantha Carter. It was fine, for a bit, but it grated on her. And she just got tired.

She stopped responding to them. When Harlan screeched for "Samantha," or when Daniel called "Sam," or when Teal'c requested the presence of "Captain Carter," or even when Colonel O'Neill hollered for "Carter," she was silent. She had told them all multiple times that she was _not _any of those names. None of them belonged to her. She was a copy of that person, not the real thing, and she would not respond to someone else's name. If the Colonel asked her _what_ she wantedto be called then, she would sink into a deep, trancelike silence that not even Daniel could coax her out of. She knew that someday she'd have to break out of this funk, but she figured that she had a few thousand years to do it.

This wasn't like her. She had always just taken things as they fell. She was strong. She had been devastated when she wasn't selected for the first Abydos mission, but she had persevered. She had been badly shaken when Jonas died, but she had handled it. She had been slightly traumatized when Apophis had killed all of them, but she had lived. She had been brokenhearted when the Colonel had fallen for an alien woman (okay, well, in all honesty the "marriage cake" probably had something to do with it) and ended up with the aging nanites, but she had kept her head above water and solved the problem. She had been downright offended by Hathor, but she and Janet had taken care of her rather effectively. She had had her mind played with and been convinced that one of her best friends was killed in front of her, but she had handled it well (actually far better than the others did, in her opinion). She had been stranded in Antarctica, with no way home and a dying colonel on her hands, but she hadn't given up. This had been their first mission after recovering. She knew that Captain Doctor Samantha Carter could handle anything, but that wasn't her anymore. She was strong, but sometimes even the strongest have to break. Still, she hated herself for sinking into this bottomless pit of emotion, which only made things worse for this woman without an identity, without a name.

She had been sitting in a remote corner of the factory for days, ignoring everyone and everything, before Daniel finally found her.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked.

She shook her head and offered a ghost of a smile that she knew must look fairly pitiful. They sat there in silence for a while before she started to talk.

"Daniel?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"How are you coping with this?" she said somewhat angrily.

"What do you mean?"

"Doesn't it bother you that you aren't Doctor Daniel Jackson?"

"No, because I still am."

"No, you're not," she said.

"Yes, I am. There are just two of us. That doesn't make either of us less important."

"Daniel, that doesn't make sense."

"Sure it does. Think about it this way. Identical twins have the exact same genetics and grow up in almost exactly the same environment. A lot of them look and think almost exactly alike. Does that make either one of them less of a person?"

"This is different. We have the exact same memories. We've lived the exact same life. Until a couple of days ago, we were literally the same person. I didn't exist until then, so I'm a copy."

He sighed. "Back to the twins. You realize that during development, up until a point, they develop as a single organism before splitting into two. By your logic, that makes one of them a mere copy of the other. Sam, we're distinct from the moment we were created. We're real too, and we are equally important. We could have even squabbled about whether we got to go home if we didn't know that Maybourne would take us away to be experimented on like what almost happened to the Tollan. You are still Samantha Carter."

"But this is different. I'm not sure if we're even technically alive! I'm a machine, Daniel. A machine! I'm not human."

"Sam, even if we're not technically alive by whichever definition you're using, you should know that things change! You rewrite the laws of physics for fun before breakfast! Don't you remember that since scientists started developing artificial intelligence they have been postulating that machines can become sentient?"

"I guess you're right. Thanks," she said, tired of fighting, and offered a slightly more convincing smile. She didn't really believe him, but she knew that, now that they had found the place where she went to hide and cry, they would never give up trying to coax her out. She was too emotionally tired to put up with their persuasion.

"Will you come with me? Join the rest of us?" the stubborn archaeologist asked.

"Soon," she said, "I just need some time to process everything."

He left her alone then, albeit reluctantly. Only a few minutes passed before Colonel O'Neill walked up and sat down beside her, pulling her into a tight, comforting hug. She relaxed for the first time since she discovered that she was her own robot double and cried into his shoulder.

They stayed that way for hours until they heard Daniel calling for them. She reluctantly pulled away from his comforting embrace, wincing as the pain in her heart returned. The Colonel had been able to stave it off for a while, but now it was back full force.

"Carter?" he said tentatively.

"Hmm?"

"You okay?"The concern in his eyes was almost heartbreaking.

"Yeah," she lied. He didn't look convinced as he offered a hand to pull her up, but he didn't say anything else as they walked back together.


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm back with more! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed or put this on story alert. I was definitely not expecting this much love for my first SG-1 fic. Hope you enjoy chapter 2; let me know what you think!**

Time passed, as time tends to. She almost wished she could say that it had been the longest few months of her life, but she perceived time differently in this body. Perhaps because she knew she could live forever, each day seemed so insignificant. The idea of forever was terrifying, but somehow almost comforting. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like, but then again, she couldn't imagine what anything less would feel like either. Her mind was sharper than it had ever been, but it still couldn't comprehend infinity. That bothered her.

The days began to run together. They were all the same, after all. Time had worn at her, and she was tired. She had started responding to all their different names for her, not because she had changed her mind, but because she was sick of fighting. She had kept just close enough that they didn't worry much, but distant enough that she was left alone. Sure, Daniel looked at her with his concerned face on and stammered a few concerned-sounding comments. Teal'c knew to let her work it out in her own time. Harlan, she thought, was becoming a little scared of her. She didn't mind that as much as she probably should have, so long as no one bothered her. And no one did. No one except Jack. After the first six months, he decided she needed a purpose.

" Carter," he said, "I was thinking it's getting a little stale around here. What do you think?"

"Sir, you know we can't leave."

"Stop it, Carter. Jack. My name is Jack."

"Yes, sir." She needed the distance. They'd been through the same exchange far too many times to count, but she wouldn't budge. Jack—because he would always be Jack inside her head, regardless of what her mouth said—sighed, and for a moment she regretted her words. But he lifted his head back up and all traces of hurt were gone.

"Anyway, we ought to get out of here," he told her.

"Sir?"

"You're the super-genius, Carter. Portable power sources. Shouldn't be hard for you, right?"

"I don't think you understand," she said. "That's impossible."

"Good, so a week then?"

She laughed for the first time in months. "More like a couple of years at the bare minimum."

"We've got time," he said. "It's not like they need all four of us at the station. You can build the power sources, and I can sit in a spinny chair and make helpful comments." He laid a hand on her shoulder. "Sam, I believe in you."

She felt her lips curving into a smile against her will. "I'll see what I can do. But you'll have to help me get to look at the main source, and you know Harlan won't let us."

"Distracting comtraya-boy? Now that's something I can do. Now get to work!" He grinned as he delivered the mock-order.

"Sir?" she said quietly as he turned to work away.

He stopped. "Yeah?"

"Thank you…Jack."

"No, Sam. Thank _you_." And he smiled, slow and sweet and sad, and he turned and walked away, and she stood there watching him walk into the distance, into the metal shapes of the station.

She swore then to never say his name again, because it meant too much. She couldn't risk something like that, not as a computer.

True to his word, Jack had somehow or other MacGyvered a spinny chair. He sat there for hours, occasionally getting up to peer over her shoulder or otherwise meddle in her work. She was scared about the easy familiarity they were developing, but she didn't know quite what she would do without it. He was all-too-quickly becoming her anchor, the only way she could feel _anything, _and that scared her even more_._ She shouldn't be this dependent on anyone else; it wasn't healthy. But he made her feel real.

She hated when she was alone, because that was the time when doubt crept in and she began to fall apart. It was worst of all when Harlan was around. She didn't feel "better," and if she heard the word one more time she would be gone before he could say "comtraya." She was bitter instead.

Harlan had tried as hard as he could to keep her from getting much work done on the power source. She was beginning to suspect that he was actively sabotaging the station, but not even Teal'c could keep an eye on him at all times. He knew the station so much better than they did; he'd had so much longer to learn all its secrets. But she made progress, steady though slow, and six more months passed in a blur that didn't hurt quite as much as she thought it should.

She had looked into Jack's eyes three days ago and was still puzzling over what she'd seen. He loved her, that was plain. He loved her, even though she was trying so hard to push everyone away. He loved her, but he hadn't said anything because he knew that she wasn't ready to hear it. She didn't deserve him, because he had an identity. Jack was good at coping. So was Daniel. So was Teal'c, although lately he spent most of his time communing with a non-existent symbiote. She had thought that she was good at coping too.

She had decided that her problem was that her inner scientist couldn't see herself as anything but a soulless machine. Jack and Teal'c knew when not to think, and Daniel could philosophize his way into a new identity. She could neither stop thinking nor think her way out of this puzzle. She felt like an outsider, so she did what she always did when she was upset: throw herself into her work. So she tinkered with a power source and Jack spun around in his chair and they repeated the same old small talk that still made her smile.


	3. Chapter 3

**I'm sorry it took me so long to update! My life's been absolutely insane lately, but I've finally been able to get back to my lovely robots and the lovely people who read about them. Thanks so much for the amazing story alerts and reviews. Y'all are great. Hope you like it!**

**SG-1 is not mine. Just in case the fact that it's not still running and Sam and Jack didn't have a whole mini-SG team of kidlets didn't clue you in. **

Colonel O'Neill had been creeping slowly closer to the entity known as Samantha Carter. Neither of them had ever been the touchy-feely type. Well, except with Daniel, but he hardly counted; he somehow seemed to worm his way into everyone's heart until he became the little brother they never had. But Daniel was the exception and not the rule, so the first time Jack crept up behind her and rested his chin on her shoulder, she jumped.

"Ow! Carter, what'd ya do that for?"

"Sorry, Sir. It was a reflex. Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he said, rubbing his chin in an offended manner. "I'll just stay away from your shoulders of pain and suffering from now on."

She blushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It's fine, Sam. Don't worry about it."

"You don't…have to stay away," she whispered.

"What's that?"

"Nothing," she said. "Just thinking out loud."

He put his chin back and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Get back to work, Carter."

Another year had passed, and finally she had finished creating four portable power sources. She was fairly sure that it would only have taken a quarter as long if Harlan would just have left her alone; by the end, the station was malfunctioning two or three times a day. She didn't blame him as much as she once had, though. Loneliness is a heck of a drug, and it can make people do strange things so as not to be alone. She figured he was afraid that they'd leave him there and never come back. Maybe he wasn't so wrong; she'd do it in an instant if she could. She thought she probably should have felt guilty about that. She didn't.

Sam's intuition hadn't abandoned her entirely, even though she was convinced she was soulless. She still knew things, and especially things about Jack. She could tell he was biding his time, waiting for the right moment to speak. She knew now for certain that he loved her, and, for the moment, that just made the woman without an identity feel guilty.

No one was quite sure when Daniel had started being allowed to schedule meetings, but they figured it was somewhere around the time Teal'c had agreed with him. Danny had decided they needed to be more connected, so now they met for an hour every night to talk. Harlan had attended for the first week, but he got bored fast, so it was just the four of them talking. Well, it was supposed to be all four of them talking, but mostly it was just Daniel rambling awkwardly on, and Jack good-naturedly mocking him, and Teal'c occasionally injecting monosyllabic comments. Sam never spoke, only leaned against Jack's shoulder and sat in the acceptance there. But that was all right. She liked it that way.

That evening, as they all sat on the steps in front of the Stargate, she spoke to them all for the first time in months.

"I've finished," she said.

"Really?" a wide-eyed Daniel said as he pushed up his glasses.

"It's not perfect—we only have 24 hours to a charge—but we can get out of here if only for a little while. We can get back to doing what we're supposed to do," she said.

"That's great!" Jack exclaimed, pulling her a bit closer and smiling proudly.

"Indeed," Teal'c said.

"That's, that's phenomenal! We can be SG-1 again! Well, maybe we'd have to call it SG-1.1, since we're not exactly the originals. Naah, SG-1 works. But maybe we could…" Daniel began to ramble, not realizing the effect his words had on his friends.

She and Jack reacted like they'd been burned. In an instant, Jack's arm was back at his side and she was sitting a good two feet away from him. Neither was sure who'd pulled away first, but both felt somehow rejected Daniel soon noticed that he'd said something wrong, but he didn't know how to fix it. The four of them sat in silence all night long.

_It isn't fair! _she thought. _Just when I had a chance at happiness, we have to go back to being "Sir" and "Carter"! I was beginning to think…to hope…I might be able to give him a chance. But I can't deprive us of our chance to do what we're supposed to do. But now that we're going on missions as representatives of Earth and the Air Force, we have to go back to that stupid little dance around our feelings. _

She found herself back at her workbench, back in the abandoned corner of the factory where she'd set up her little lab. She knew he'd find her there, and they needed to talk. Jack walked up slowly. She knew their bodies didn't age, but, as she looked at the stoop of his shoulders, she swore he looked ten years older.

He hugged her—_for the last time_, she thought—and whispered that everything would be all right, and asked her if she wanted some time alone.

"No thanks," she said. "I've had too much of that. It's time to be SG-1 again."

"That doesn't mean a thing," he said. "We're _not_ SG-1. We're us."

"Jack." He smiled when she said his name. It made her feel even worse about what she had to say. "You've been spending this whole time telling me I'm still Samantha Carter. You can't pick and choose between identities. Either I am her, or I'm not. You can't have both."

"Yes, I can. You can. _We _can."

"No you can't. You did the same thing I did. If we're going to live their lives, we have to follow the rules. You know that just as well as I do, so don't deny it."

"So, this is your choice?" he asked.

"No, Jack." And another stab through the heart. "I never had a choice."

He started to walk away, but turned back. He took her chin in his hand and ran his thumb across her cheek. "You should know that I love you," he whispered.

"I know," she said with a watery smile. "But we're SG-1, and I'm not allowed to love you." His face fell as he walked away, and she watched her last chance at believing she was real walk out the door.


	4. Chapter 4

**I swear I haven't forgotten this story! I had it all scheduled out, but that was for a three-chapter story, and this one kind of took on a life of its own. There's a good two or three chapters left in this one. The writer has no real control, you know. I'm just a slave to the little SG-1 inside my head.**

**Questions, comments, concerns, marriage proposals, blank checks, and/or blue jello should be deposited behind that shiny little "review" button, if you feel like it. Especially the jello. **

**Was there a cracktastic musical episode? No. Then SG-1 is pretty obviously not mine. **

Samantha Carter remembered every 'Gate address their old selves had ever been to, as well as quite a few that they'd just sent MALPs to. She could recall even more now—addresses that had been lying dormant in her mind, just out of reach until she was "upgraded." She wracked her brain for the best possible place for their first outing. After consulting with the others, she picked a gorgeous moon with dense forests and pristine beaches. They left Harlan with strict instructions to stay put no matter what, telling him that they should be back in sixteen hours, but that, even if they weren't, he was not to do _anything, _or they'd sic Teal'c on him when they did get back. He paced and worried and rubbed his hands together in typical Harlan fashion, but no one was concerned, considering he did that more often than not.

Sam meticulously, silently outfitted the others with the new power supplies. Daniel and Jack—_No! Bad girl! Colonel O'Neill!—_had already gotten everything else ready, and they were good to go. They decided that, the first time out, it would be best if they went to an uninhabited planet. Preferably one that SG-1 had been to already, so that there would be no chance of running into themselves. She knew that that would not be good, especially as they had promised to bury the 'Gate. No one was quite sure why their other selves had actually believed them. Perhaps the real her had overestimated her prudence, or her willingness to adhere to orders, or even just her influence over one Colonel Jack O'Neill. Whichever way, the 'Gate certainly wasn't buried; it was spinning and making that beautiful _ka-woosh _noise that still sent chills down her spine. It was time to claim their birthright.

Stepping through the event horizon and out onto another planet was always a rush, but the first trip through in two years was absolutely mind-blowing. The feeling of freedom was intoxicating; even Teal'c acted a little childish. They ran through the tall grass, pushed their way through the trees, and swam in the warm ocean water. Daniel somehow managed to find some sort of artifact to bring back, and Sam had never been so thrilled to take soil samples. Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill didn't even have the heart to be ashamed of their "military strategy training," which mainly consisted of pretending sticks were guns and jumping out from behind rocks. Sam most certainly had not joined in. For more than three hours. She and Teal'c _had_ won, after all, and if Jack complained about the fairness of two against one, they just pretended not to hear him. When they only had half an hour left before they had to head back, they lay down in the cool sand and watched the twin suns set. It had been the perfect day.

They went back to the moon several times as she continued to tweak the power devices. Before long, she had upgraded them so that they could last forty-eight hours. Once they were all confident in their ability to remain powered on missions, they started out on some actual explorations. At first, it was just short, simple missions. Sam was intimately familiar with the dialing algorithm, so she attempted to reverse its order of planets as best she could without accidentally dialing into any black holes or anything equally sketchy. They didn't even necessarily have to go to planets with atmosphere.

"C'mon, T, just say it!"

"I will not, Colonel O'Neill."

"Pleeeeeeease?" Sam would like to be able to say that Jack had just busted out the most ineffective set of puppy-dog eyes ever, but, honestly, if she were in Teal'c's place, she probably would have just said the thing already, whatever it was.

"What are you trying to get him to say, Sir?" she asked

"That's one small step for a Jaffa, one giant leap for Jaffa-kind!"

"I have already been on many planets. I do not see how the atmosphere or lack thereof makes a difference."

They spent their days searching through uninhabited planets until Sam had some kind of dirt collection going on and Daniel had a small museum set up in one corner of the station. She knew she was being overly cautious, but she wanted to be sure they were used to the new power devices first. Finally, Sam decided they were ready to go on missions to inhabited planets. Jack was letting her call the shots; it was her technology, and she knew it best.

First, they found a few societies of hunter-gatherers. They weren't even advanced enough to attract the attention of the Goa'uld, but were apparently "an incredible glimpse into the culture and society of early mankind." It was always nice to see new faces, even if communication did take the form of hand signals. Jack kept ribbing Daniel about some chicken impression—it must have been something she missed, or perhaps from before she met them. She was fairly sure she would have remembered if Danny had ever done that.

Then there was the Jaffa outpost. Teal'c said they served Lord Yu, who hadn't been very active lately. The three warriors of the group were in their element, and Daniel was at least along for the ride.

"Behind you, Carter!" Sam looked back just in time to see a Jaffa arming his staff weapon. She ducked, shooting him neatly in the head.

"Got him, Sir. Daniel, you all right over there?" They'd been working with him on his marksmanship, but it was still a bit sketchy at times.

"Yeah, Sam!" He sounded stressed, but Sam grinned proudly as she watched him drop another Jaffa.

Sam's mind finally calmed down as all her thoughts centered solely on the skirmish around her. She spotted a wall that had been hit by a staff weapon; it was the perfect height for shelter.

"There's cover there! Get yourselves over there; I'll cover you!" she yelled, ducking back behind the 'Gate. The three other members of SG-1.1 made a break for the cover. Sam was no longer a robot, no longer a human, no longer anything but a precision instrument with the sole purpose of victory. Every second, every thought, every moment, every breath, was solely in the present, solely in the fight. There was nothing else.

"Get over here, Carter; I'll cover you." She automatically analyzed the situation to make sure she'd be safe, and then obeyed.

"I've got your six," she said, picking off the warriors that tried to creep behind them.

"Colonel O'Neill, that is the last of them," Teal'c said before long. The dust cleared, and Captain Carter backed away as Sam returned. She was almost disappointed. It had felt good to be fully in control of her mind again. "There will be more soon," the Jaffa added. "We should leave."

"Get the staff weapons. We can always use more firepower," the Colonel barked. "Let's move out."

There were skirmishes, and mildly-advanced civilizations, and all the things that came with the territory of being an SG team. It was almost enough to keep them occupied. Then came P2X-597.


End file.
